Patrick O'Flynn

Could Owen Paterson save our nation from Brussels?

THE Right is the largest faction in the Conservative Party. Most grassroots members are firmly Right-wing on every issue from law and order to country sports and many local associations select parliamentary candidates in their own image.

So it is a mystery that for more than two decades the Tory Right has
lacked a charismatic leader in the House of Commons. When Margaret
Thatcher was toppled the Right could not even find a candidate to put
into the field for the subsequent leadership election.

It was forced to swing behind John Major to
prevent Douglas Hurd and Michael Heseltine turning the leadership into a
private contest between ardent pro-Europeans. In 1995, by which time
Thatcherites had discovered that Major was by no means “one of us”, they
were soundly beaten by him when they put up John Redwood to contest the
leadership.

In 1997
Mr Redwood was well beaten again by William Hague who in turn was
thrashed at the 2001 general election. Then an undiluted Rightist, Iain
Duncan Smith, became party leader but was such a disaster he had to be
removed after two years, making way for Michael Howard. The former home
secretary did a good job but failed to set the pulses racing and was
beaten by Tony Blair at the 2005 election.

The Tory Right has a new leader and I had better tell you about him because he will be a key player in politics for the remainder of this parliament

After that contest the Tories turned to David
Cameron in preference to either of the two champions of the Right: David
Davis and Liam Fox. Both Davis and Fox have since blown up – the former
when he resigned as shadow home secretary to campaign on civil
liberties, the latter when he resigned from the Cabinet over the role of
an adviser. I t has been received wisdom for several years that the
absence of a single commanding figure for Right-wing MPs to rally behind
means they have no alternative other than to meekly accept whatever is
the latest “modernising” ruse dreamt up by David Cameron.

But this has now changed. The Tory Right has a new
leader and I had better tell you about him because he will be a key
player in politics for the remainder of this parliament. His name is
Owen Paterson and he is Secretary of State for the Environment. Prior to
that he was Northern Ireland Secretary.

In Ulster he adopted a nononsense, pro-Union attitude
that nevertheless kept the peace process intact. On one occasion he
tore a strip off a civil servant who had drafted a memo that referred to
a republican ex-terrorist as a “former prisoner of war”.

As Environment Secretary he has already signalled
his scepticism about wind farms and is being tested by two tricky
issues: the possible badger cull and the arrival of the ash dieback
disease. But as befits a man from rural Shropshire he is handling them
with authority.

Paterson is from a classic Tory background – public school and Cambridge – but with a difference.

Rather than hang around with the London media and
politics set after university he got himself a proper job – as sales
director of the British Leather Company before going on to run another
tanners company in Halesowen in the Midlands.

He’s in noticeably good nick for 56, is married
into the aristocratic Ridley family and has progressed largely because
of a dogged adherence to causes in which he believes.

Most interestingly one of those causes is the
restoration of British sovereignty in respect of the European Union.
After last week’s House of Commons rebellion over proposals to expand
the EU budget it was reported that an unnamed Cabinet minister had
seriously considered resigning to lead the uprising.

I do not know that the minister in question was Mr
Paterson. But I did hear well-sourced stories that he was one of those
ministers giving an approving “nod and a wink” to Tories who defeated
the Government by voting to cut the budget.

Paterson has already been in hot water with
Downing Street for his Eurosceptic views. Almost a year ago he gave an
interview in which he became the first minister to describe a referendum
on Britain’s relationship with the EU as “inevitable”.

Since then the mood of Tory MPs has hardened
against the EU, with many more happy to say they believe Britain would
be better off out and that they want a referendum soon.

Of course Mr Paterson’s position has been further
strengthened by his promotion to a more mainstream Cabinet portfolio.

On the back benches a growing Eurosceptic army has
been in search of a leader. It now has a Cabinet champion. Mr Duncan
Smith is content to be kingmaker for the Right, seeing his life’s
mission as reforming the welfare state. Mr Paterson is the man who would
be king.